The Yorkshire seaside town clinging on to its Victorian heyday

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Fifty or more years ago, I would have arrived in Saltburn-by-the-Sea by train. Let’s fantasise and assume I was travelling first class because, of course, I’d be staying in the Victorian resort’s flagship hotel, The Zetland; meaning that I could disembark at the hotel’s private platform and not have to mix with the hoi-polloi.

It was the opening of the railway in 1861 (bringing in holidaymakers from the northern cities) that kick-started the development of the clifftop fishing and mining town - with a sweeping beach - into a seaside resort. And, my, was it flashy.

The Zetland Hotel, opened by local worthy, Lord Zetland, in 1863, was headlined as the UK’s first purpose-built railway hotel with...

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